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Month: October 2014

Guy Debord: The spectacle of advertising
In DFS we studied the philosophy of Guy Debord, unsurprisingly, some of the class found this work a little hard to grasp, but listened intently to the discussion

This is about the identity of Loucas, the fake identity I was asked to set up. I have actually had a bit of difficulty finding places and topics good enough to get responses, yet genuine enough to seem real. This task has proved to be quite difficult for me to accomplish.

Biography of Loucas ‘Lou’ Thespian Witer

Actual Name: Loucas Thespian Witer
Alias: Lou || Loucas Thespian

Username for all accounts: MustacheandBowler
Password for all accounts: *********** (Censored)
(This password is to comply with most websites’ requirement for at least:
One capital letter;
One lowercase letter;
One number; and
One Symbol)

Lemmi is named after a bass guitarist from Motorhead
Toffy is a random name, a play on the name of the sweet Toffee

Pictures are of the actual cats that my partner’s mother own. Their actual names are Tilly (black cat) and Poppy (bengal cat).
They were taken with permission from her private Facebook feed, so they shouldn’t appear in any reverse image searches.

What I can ascertain from what Guy Debord has written is the illusion of perception in various aspects and what I can understand as an anachronistic implication as we pull further from stability. Debord points to religion and the further we are from reality essentially the easier it is to grasp in faith of the non-real. He continues to describe sacredness as the essence of illusion as we tug away from what is discernable truth, similarly this can be applied to the ‘god of the gaps’, argument and the correlation of causation and cum hoc ergo propter hoc, to see belief that defines reality by ignoring what can be observed. I would argue that if we analyse everything to such a degree, we begin to see cracks and flaws in what we understand as reality, and that in some ways our reality personal to ourselves is worthy of preservation, it may be that we have a fallacy of reality however each take on the world, and life span differs creating beauty in our individual understanding, for example, we see art in everything created by an individuals idea on what reality is represented and designed by, this dates back to when humans as a race could first think for themselves and learned, created and shared their knowledge. Throughout history this is empirically true.

The conjecture of this essay inspects the ontological aspect of A.I., and the comparison to humanizing aspects of A.I, examples are made throughout likening the creative thoughts of playwrights attempting to “penetrate the soul” -Henrik Ibsen. The observation is made that Human qualities to story telling are unique to the life experience of a person and that artificial intelligence is ambiguous at best. Humans as a collective have observed and continued to further artificial intellect, and have made many assumptions based on fantastical belief. We can only speculate what may occur in the future with curious anticipation. I would like to make the observation however that humans and indeed any living organic creature seem to be closer to A.I.

We understand A.I to be something controllable and has not yet developed sentient awareness, evolved humans have emotions, empathy, sympathy and a moral compass, that although differs in some ways to each individual, seems to have been hard-wired into us, for example the emotional sense most people feel towards infants, and a scientific observation that small creatures with large eyes tend to effect a maternal instinct, that we may define for instance, tossing a new born child off a cliff to it’s certain death, is something truly horrifying, An A.I. would calculate this to be wrong if it programmed to do so, a human would ‘feel’ this is wrong because of a deep set instinct of survival within the evolution process. In what is observed in both cases either would be ‘compelled’ to protest in the strongest form possible, however human emotions may be infinitely more complex than a machine programmed, it is non the less a direct rule, the same as the ‘Three Laws of Robotics':

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

These rules are rules closely regarded in our own collective, morally, logically and for survival. Are we simply trying to replicate ourselves, or simulate ourselves? And if we were one day removed by A.I, being an obsolete factor of devolution, would an A.I. become then a simulation and humans a mere biological representation?

This article views and theorises on a multi platform of online users in varying aspects, including online presence and the resolution, addiction and self absorbed ‘reality’, within reality from the alteration of gender to a psychodynamic approach towards ones own ‘belief’ and what could be considered their ‘real’. Used also as a mental resolve the context of an online reality seems to view a user in a state of mental precipice, almost dramatizing the act of claiming an online persona. However this review of case studies show that people rely on a online presence for a variety of reasoning’s including the need to define one’s self socially, economically, sexually, religious and political views and beliefs regarded as a faith of online belief, that correlates to an external online presence “There is only either fact, or fiction, the in between of those two things are hope, and denial and faith is a heavy mix of both.” -Paul Andrew Ryan.

So, in what we see as the real, what we know with fallible senses, can be altered not only by first hand experience but also our perception can be altered through the mediums of acquired learning, from news broadcasts that dramatise or attempt to alter what we see to benefit a third party, to school books and education that may be false, our children learn by there forefathers making this world one built on conflicting views, each one as false as another. I would argue that we should be humble in our opinion of something we may not fully understand because what we perceive as truth will always be another false, the proof of this can be observed scientifically in faith wars, hate speech and discrimination.

To regard something as a simulation, it must be observed by myself or at least one person as true and real.

Dreams
When we sleep our minds have been proven to increase in activity though we appear exactly the opposite. Lucid dreams happen to most of us, and experiencing them we sometimes fall under a misconception that we are in a reality. A common example most portrayed is falling and suddenly waking up, of course this goes deeper, and can have some adverse effects such as sleepwalking, talking etcetera.

Society overruling fact – MSG scandal
The United States Food and Drug Administration, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, World Health Organisation and the European Community’s Scientific Committee for Foods all cleared MSG ingredients for safety, in fact it was classified as the safest category of food ingredient.
In April 1968, Robert Ho Man Kwok wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, explaining that he had experienced a strange syndrome, when he had eaten northern Chinese food at a Chinese Restaurant. Ho Man Kwok’s journal entry was seen by the public eye, and instantaneously regarded as a serious threat. In this case fear and misconception can be simulations, bending our mind and will against well researched and documented facts. This can be a simulation in that the fact of a defect within MSG however minuscule a chance, has an element of the source of fear, it is then taken as a real out of ignorance.

Self-portrait in a red robe 1853
I had the great pleasure of seeing this self-painted portrait of Watts clad in a striking red robe. Resembling Venetian senators, clerics or lawyers, the red garb was a powerful statement of his character and was to be hung to welcome visitors at the entrance of his studio. The true reason for his choice is still unclear, it is possible that he wanted to draw the notion of misconceptions of reality and become himself a simulation to those unaware of his work, as something else.

Hope
This powerful and sombre piece depicts a woman sat atop a globe representing the world, plucking a single string on a harp, she is blindfolded and it has been said that upon looking at this, most remark on the title and say it should be named despair, however the objective reality can be shifted, as it also shows in our bleakest moments there is always hope. This beautiful sentiment has inspired many people. I believe that the depiction of such a bleak outlook is created to instil some of that very emotion captured in the title. The allegorical works of Watts create an interesting narrative that builds on his own reality and perspective to evoke an emotional response, whereby as we come to uncover each metaphor the realities represented are simulated emotionally.

Critical response: Nick Bostrom – Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?

This speculates to the future of the human race and essentially its evolution into a post-human era. It could be thought that humans may evolve biologically and cybernetically as the being of our race changes in what way could we strive to be more ‘human’? If an artificial intelligence gained a true sense of self-awareness, how can we determine what is simulated?This also may infer that historically we are the same human simulation of our predecessors. If our notions of evolution were ‘survival of the fittest’, would cybernetic human simulations be another step closer to what humans now strive to be?

Is it that a hyper-real construct may be a vicissitude of the ontological subject that it represents? Or perhaps it is merely as simple as an unmasked fake that wears a veil of its subjects being. In fact we know that much like the speculation debated over the existence of a single (or many) omnipotent divine god, no empirical proof can be solidly claimed.“Science adjusts its views based on what’s observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.” – Tim Minchin

In conclusion, to this very day we continue to paint a picture of reality to what we hold witness to in life. An easy example is that some of us measure clothes by a design of fashion, and for others it is the means in which to keep warm. I doubt that the colour of ideals that we paint on the canvas of the world will ever change. I do not think it should be a question of how to deal with a simulation but the recognition of a simulation and the ‘real’ in our being to render it as fact or fiction, thus the question lays on the brush that we use.